Holes
by crimewaves
Summary: What happened to Clarabelle...? Warning- spoilers for mortal coil ahoy. Also, not a cheerful, non violent, non surreal read. So you're aware, it's a bit odd.


**_Disclaimed_**

**_SUMMARY- Ever wondered what happened to Clarabelle. Let's hazard a guess..._**

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Holes

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I will not forget what I saw that day.

I cannot forget. It stares at me in the mirror through my unblinking eyes, the ritual branded into the backs of my eyes. The images flicker and repeat every night and slowly I believe I am forgetting how to sleep. My fingers never stop trembling. I wish my head had a hole in it, like it did before, and all the thoughts and niggles and memories would spill out like rain from a gutter. It'll never happen though. It shines too clearly from its perch on my eyelids.

.

I've killed people, you know. It started when I hurt the only father I ever had.

.

Kenspeckle Grouch was old and stingy and brilliant. Like a grandfather, I always thought. He had the best coats- lab coats, they're called, and they're long and white and clean. I always liked that they were long, and was always disappointed that they didn't swish around my legs like I'd seen Valkyrie's coat do. Mind you, that could have been necromancer's shadows. She ran off with those people with the cutting shadows and wolf's smiles, and I think she fit right in. I dream of her a lot. It sounds strange, but I know what she is. Who she is- how perfect she is. Then I realise that the memories are sticking and the loneliness almost swallows me whole so I take a pill and I wipe the sheen of tears from my eyes.

I killed him. It horrible and it hurts and it's true. I killed Kenspeckle, I killed Kenspeckle, _bye bye granddad_! I know all about it. The blood on the lab coat was telltale (as the good old detective would say) and Valkyrie's eyes spoke volumes and I remembered _everything_. I knew it. I dream of when I tracked him down, picked up the scalpel and drew it down his chest, jabbed it through the ribs. He peeled like an orange. It's ironic, that I've always loved Valkyrie Cain's black and red coat, and mine is now redder than hers but it's all because of the blood. It soaked me to the bone.

Remnants are monsters. They slide down your throat like fish and crawl beneath the skin. Then you are it. Thoughts touch and blend and plug up all the holes in your head and psyche. My memory has been fine since I was possessed. Actually, the only thing that ever felt righter was spending a Saturday afternoon in the lab, pouring potions and mixings draughts as Kenspeckle hummed along to an old song in the background. But then there was distance. Between me and Kenspeckle and the others there was always metres and centimetres and nanometres of air and flesh and bone pushing us apart. When the remnant pried open my jaw and filled me to the brim with black, there was nothing between us. It was I. No space, no disagreement or failure. Just_ us_.

I felt so relieved when it was drawn out of my mouth in the mountains beneath a twilit sky. Then the emptiness set in, the walls of my mind caving in and flooding my skull with snapshots of my day. Tinkering with glasses in the lab (snap), tapping my fingers against a side table as I heard the news(snap.) Darquesse's face, cold and pale and godlike (snap). Kenspeckle's panicked brown eyes (snap) my finger sliding around the scalpel, feeling the metal sink into the flesh (snap.) Valkyrie (Darquesse-Valkyrie. Valkyrie-Darquesse. Valkyrie?) with a face white as a hospital sheet, eyes wide with shock as she drank in my smile that curled along my flesh shells perfect black lips like smoke.

(snap snap snap)

_Oh God what did I do?_

..

They aren't looking for me. I'm just Clarabelle, and it was Kenspeckle they were there for. The man I killed. He was all I had, you know. I loved him more than I loved my father, the happy man who was lost to the ocean waves when I was 7 years old. I miss the lighthouse (it burned down) and I miss all my animal friends that I used to spend my days twittering with (they don't see me anymore. They must know that I'm a monster. How does Valkyrie do this?) and I miss the burble of voices at my shoulder, telling me to not _drink that bottle Clarabelle! Honestly child, have you not an ounce of sense..._

I haven't saw the detectives, and I haven't seen Tanith Low or the rock man (he may have a name and flesh and blood now, but he's always the stone person to me.) and I know I'm not seeing Dr Grouch. I killed him, and I haven't forgotten it. Makes a not-nice change, having a memory.

I miss speaking as well. I witter on and on at the grimy street walls and no one answers back. I scream and throw things at it, and it doesn't say a word for all my tear choked secrets. Never a thing. I hope Valkyrie is searching for me. I hope she brings me her coat, as well, because it's cold on the streets, and that coat of hers looked warm. I've always liked it, you know. I liked the red red _blood red sleeves_. Just smart. I wonder if the council knows she's Darquesse. I wonder when she's going to get here. I'm hungry, and my mind is about to crumble from the absence of my darkness, and I wish I could see the glory of Darquesse again. Wonderful, wonderful times.

...

My dreams mix like blood and water, a murky pink of beaches and dark lab rooms, with the moist, warm corpse beneath my hands and the damp sand beneath my toes. Blood smells metallic and salty, just like saltwater, and that's how I know the waves lapping at the edge of my awareness are made of blood.

...

Been months, been months, maybe it's been years.

I miss Kenspeckle. He was so kind, giving me that job...

I wonder what I'm going to eat today. Chippy, supermarket, chippy, supermarket, chippy-

**Hello?**

...

The man had a cool coat. That was something that registered. Mainly it was the slightly smoking food in his hands. All wrapped up and ready to eat. I snatched for it when he said I could have it, and then he pulled it away and said_ but first..._

He asked me things then, feeding me a bit of meat for every answer I gave. He called me a good girl, like Kenspeckle did. Lucky I have a good memory, otherwise I never would have remembered to ask him his name.

He said he was called Jaron Gallow, that he had more food, more water, more long black coats and that I would help him find Darquesse. If I wanted to.

I licked my lips and said yes, and that was that.

...

These days I almost feel whole.

The black coat is like I always wanted, and no one expects me to have a knife in my pocket, to hide murder behind my overlarge blue eyes. Jaron smiles and looks pleased a lot. He looks fascinated when I describe Darquesse to him, and I've seen his face when he looks at photo's of Valkyrie Cain. Intent, focused, worshipful. He wants her darkness, wants her sealed heart and the cold death in her eyes that day. I just want things to go back to like they were, when I had a white coat and a grandfather and a hole in my thoughts that swallows everything greedily and gave me nothing memorable.

It can't happen, I know as much as that. But see, Jaron is looking for Tanith (one of my fleshless sisters, now) and when he finds her he'll find Valkyrie and make her wonderful. Make her smile and kill the masses, and I think that that's what matters. Family, like. It's all we really have.

So I smile blithely and act vague and all the while think of ways to bring us all together. I don't care for the skeleton, but Valkyrie and Tanith and me can all be sisters and Jaron will smile and look after us and maybe then I'll be whole.

Yes. Maybe then I will be whole.

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AN- Howdy, all. This just randomly struck me and I've had a lurking suspicion that come book six Clarabelle might be evil, and it just tugged at me. The Jaron Gallow bit is more because Landy is fond of leaving bombs lying around, and he left his fate ambigious, meaning he's probably coming back next book (since he was mentioned in this Mortal Coil). Which is good, as he was very cool.

So, reviews are appreciated (hint hint) and hope you liked it (and comprehended it. It's quite strange really. I'm happy with it, but it's strange.)


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